Tactical media to me means media projects
that people do opportunisticallyseizing temporarily
available or unclaimed resourcesto claim or reclaim
some communicative channels or some expressive space,
...

What is tactical media? An open ended list:
Tactical media is never the dress. It is the perfect pair of earrings that go with your eyes; the smart shoes; the confident smile. It is allure.
Tactical media has an ironic sense of humor and a sincere heart. ...

I define tactical media according to the military usage, in which tactics are short-term actions taken in pursuit of long-term strategies designed in accordance with doctrine, or overarching principles. ...

A look at the myriad examples of what
practitioners and theorists have described as tactical
media since 9-11 in the virtual casebook, however, demonstrates
thatlike all evolving social formswhen new
modes of alternative media appear they do not replace
but become layered over those that have come before. ...
(LINK TO ESSAY)

Tactical media are what happens when
the cheap do it yourself media made possible
by the revolution in consumer electronics and the expanded
forms of distribution (cable, satellite and internet)
are exploited by groups and individuals who feel aggrieved
or excluded by the wider culture. It is their refusal
of the position of "objectivity" which more
than anything separates the tactical from mainstream media
culture. ...

It is very important to broaden the
idea and usage of "tactical media". The necessary
power and influence of the new wave of political movements
for global economic and social justice (linked to ecological
responsibility) have led (understandably) to the term
"tactical media" being interpreted exclusively
as media used in the service of a general or specific
political campaigns. As Geert has simply lumped "tactical
media" and "indymedia" together (suggesting
that they somehow amount to the same thing) I am assuming
that this mistake is being made here. ...

If tactical media were to ever attain its legitimate objectives it would immediately become redundant as a separate category. In that moment we would all become media, equally unwilling to allow experts and media professionals to control (or monopolize) public discourse. September 11th had this precise effect, rendering (albeit momentarily) the term tactical media redundant. ...

David Garcia's reflection on tactical media in Amsterdam makes an exemplary local situation into a way to take stock of the whole panorama of tactical and direct-action movements that have emerged over the last decade. ...

In the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall the term 'tactical media' arose as a renaissance of media activism, blending old school political work, artists' engagement with new technologies. During the early nineties there was a growing awareness of gender issues, racism, post-colonial struggles and the possible role that art could play in society.

If, as David Garcia admits, the idea
of tactical media grew out of a specifically Amsterdam
context (or perhaps in a wider sense, the liberal democratic
context of the countries of advanced capitalism), it is
commendable that N5M4 is attempting to transcend its origins
and includes initiatives that were previously left out
of what seemed to be a primarily 'western' idea of tactical
media. ...

Both in and out of the picture, such "shadow media" form the tangential, mobile infrastructure of a counter-discourse to conventional national and international broadcasting. In their technology, content, and form of address, the Indonesian VCDs appear similar to other videos circulating among Muslims elsewhere. ...